shoving his chin out.

"Get a longer handle," repeated Jimmy. "Go ahead, get one."

"G'wan--"

"Wait, Moe. Maybe--"

"Who's he?"

"I'm Jimmy."

"Jimmy who?"

"Jimmy--James." Academic information came up again. "Jimmy. Like the
jimmy you use on a window."

"Jimmy James. Any relation to Jesse James?"

James Quincy Holden now told his first whopper. "I," he said, "am his
grandson."

The one called Moe turned to one of the younger ones. "Get a longer
handle," he said.

While the younger one went for something to use as a longer handle, Moe
invited Jimmy to sit on the curb. "Cigarette?" invited Moe.

"I don't smoke," said Jimmy.

"Sissy?"

Adolescent-age information looking out through five-year-old eyes assayed
Moe. Moe was about eight, maybe even nine; taller than Jimmy but no
heavier. He had a longer reach, which was an advantage that Jimmy did not
care to hazard. There was no sure way to establish physical superiority;
Jimmy was uncertain whether any show of intellect would be welcome.

"No," he said. "I'm no sissy. I don't like 'em."

Moe lit a cigarette and smoked with much gesturing and flickings of ashes
and spitting at a spot on the pavement. He was finished when the younger
one came back with a length of water pipe that would fit over the handle
of the jack.

The car went up with ease. Then came the business of removing the hubcap
and the struggle to loose the lugbolts. Jimmy again suggested the
application of the length of pipe. The wheel came off.

"C'mon, Jimmy," said Moe. "We'll cut you in."

"Sure," nodded Jimmy Holden, willing to see what came next so long as it
did not have anything to do with Paul Brennan. Moe trundled the car wheel
down the street, steering it with practiced hands. A block down and a
block around that corner, a man with a three-day growth of whiskers
stopped a truck with a very dirty license plate. Moe stopped and the
man jumped out of the truck long enough to heave the tire and wheel into
the back.

The man gave Moe a handful of change which Moe distributed among the
little gang. Then he got in the truck beside the driver and waved for
Jimmy to come along.

"What's that for?" demanded the driver.

"He's a smarty pants," said Moe. "A real good one."

"Who're you?"

"Jimmy--James."

"What'cha do, kid?"

"What?"

"Moe, what did this kid sell you?"

"You and your rusty jacks," grunted Moe. "Jimmy James here told us how to
put a long hunk of pipe on th